Rhetorical Analysis Of The Black Panther Platform

In the paper, The Black Panther Platform: “What We Want, What We Believe” the militant civil rights organization, the Black Panthers, outline their goals. Ranging from communal self-governance to government entitlements, the group focuses on the issue of racism in the United States and places the weight of the problem on the shoulders of White capitalism. The group prescribes militant self-defense as the tool African-Americans can use to further their societal position. Prior to the Black Panthers, no mainstream civil rights organization set forth a doctrine of militancy as opposed to non-violent protest and civil disobedience. Focusing on a broad definition of all forms of discrimination Black people face, de facto and de jure, the Black

Initially, the group petitions for many things they feel owed by the federal government, but later contradictorily, speak of throwing off that same government. The rhetoric in this paper tussles between demanding the support of a capitalist democratic government and simultaneously denouncing that government and proposing the creation of their own separate communist system. The Black Panthers’ goal of Black liberation is ideologically crippled by two incompatible and mutually exclusive socio-economic systems, capitalism and

On the one hand, the author writes of, “[believing] that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every man employment or a guaranteed income” (The Black Panther Platform: “What We Want, What We Believe”), an inherently communist idea of direct government support. On the other hand, they cite that “it is their duty (the Black community) to throw off such government” (The Black Panther Platform: “What We Want, What We Believe). This contradiction is an indisputable incompatibility of two very different doctrines. One cannot gain the support of a government whilst simultaneously proposing violent ideological opposition to it. Also, capitalism which suggests the need for privatization of funds and no direct government intervention would be completely flipping toward communism if it were to support public aid and support of cooperatives. By definition the two systems are incompatible. The group sees White capitalism, via the United States government, as the root cause of their oppression, putting it in one breath, “we want an end to the robbery by the Capitalist of our Black Community” (The Black Panther Platform: “What We Want, What We Believe). And in the next breath calling upon that same government, “to give decent housing to our people…the